What are we to make of the anti-Catholics? How can we explain the assault on the Church by those who profess in their words the same mission of the Church, the Salvation of mankind, but through their deeds deny it? Are the fabrications, falsehoods, and lies about the supporting beliefs of the Church, about the lives of its saints and clergy, about the verifiable facts of history justified because of doctrinal disagreements? Does any of this matter in the face of the greater assault on Christ and his flock? It defies rational thinking.

In the face of a Muslim onslaught that is bombing Christmas Masses, executing Christians for a nonexistent heresy and apostasy, and a jihad against Christians of all stripes on a massive scale we get shrill unwarranted criticism of how Catholics peaceably worship the One true God. Is smells and bells really a greater sin than sawing off heads in the name of the prophet?

In the face of a secular socialist assault that is killing babies at a pace that outpaces the crimes of Hitler, Stalin and Mao combined there are degrading insults and accusations over the difference between worship and veneration. Corrections and explanations are ignored and the apologists are pilloried. For what purpose?

In the face of the threat of Communist China that suppresses worship of all kinds and enforces forced abortions we get feeble ad naseum criticism of the Real Presence in spite of the acceptance by Catholics, both Eastern and Latin Rite, Lutherans, Anglicans, and Methodists. All the while the anti-Catholics continue the charade of Christian unity, minus those damned Catholics of course.

So in the face of the advance of worldwide evil some would have us believe that it is the Catholic Church should be destroyed when the destruction of the Church would serve to provide aid and comfort to that evil. Why? Qui Bono, for whom the benefit?

That the Church is and has always been a target of evil cannot be denied. Neither can it be denied that the Church has never been harmed or compromised by that evil. Satan can only work in this world through the actions of his willing accomplices. Those accomplices have long ago recognized that the greatest harm can be done from within the Church and history has produced numerous examples of sinners wearing the collars of priests. Regardless of the contentions of the anti-Catholics that does not negate the good that the Church has done not diminish the saints who have served God through her. Nor does it excuse those who blame one of the victims of the evil doers, the Church itself.

Perhaps those who irrationally assault the Church daily, those who spend inordinate hours researching the internet looking for dirt, those who accept any lie or indiscretion on nothing more than its bias against the Church are consciously or unconsciously in league with evil. Lex Parsimoniae, the principle which generally recommends accepting the answer that requires the fewest assumptions, when the potential answers are equal in all other respects. Is there a simpler answer?

If Obama turned out to be a fundamentalist Protestant Christian it would be the best news this country has had in years! I WISH he would show up at the liberal Foundry Baptist Church in D.C. with his Bible crazyglued to his hand a la Bill Clinton.

Compared to Muslims, Biblethumpers are a pleasure! HUGE!

Unlike the former, they don’t go around killing people who disagree with them. They just call them names, instead.

And "hocus pocus" has been alleged to be a corruption of "hoc est enim corpus meum,..." which is translated as "for this is my body.". During the words of institution, among which those words appear, we believe God to work a change in "substance".

This is not only not a natural change but a change irrelevant to the subject of the natural sciences. Science can deal with a gold annulus but cannot say whether it is merely a ring or a wedding ring. Science can describe sexual intercourse but cannot determine whether it is sacred or profane, virtuous or vicious.

56
posted on 01/09/2011 4:16:04 PM PST
by Mad Dawg
(Oh Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.)

"The problem is that everyone (including yourself) subscribes to an "abracadabra" theory of ex-nihilation.

You don't know what I do or don't subscribe to.

The argument is on what followed . . . whether or not the formation of the universe followed natural processes, or if natural processes did not assume their current form until after the formation was complete."

Are you implying that anything created by God is unnatural or that anything natural was not created by God?

58
posted on 01/09/2011 4:39:03 PM PST
by Natural Law
(Grant that we may be one flock and one shepherd!)

Are there laws of science at all in your view? Is it an integral part of your opinion that those who differ from it do so through moral fault?

Of course there are laws of science. But they are created and, by the very nature of things, non-eternal. At a certain point only G-d existed. Then somehow by his omnipotent power he brought into existence physical reality and all its laws. But these laws did not pre-exist their creation nor did they (nor could they) govern the process of their own creation. They only functioned--indeed, only existed--after their supernatural creation from nothing. Just how in anyone's twisted thinking is my denial of the eternal pre-existence of the laws of science a "denial" of the laws of science?

As to the moral thing, I most certainly regard hypocrisy as a moral failure. And I regard people who believe in the magic tricks of the "new testament" and of the middle ages while denying as absolutely impossible the events of the Torah as absolutely despicable in its hypocrisy and probably based on class snobbery ("the virgin birth is for intellectuals, Genesis is for white trash").

I agree that saying God is author of the Big Bang contradicts a lot of central Christian doctrines.

Like man being made in God’s image; the Fall; the introduction of death into the world; etc.

For example, if you say God took dust, made man in His image, and breathed the breath of life in him; that is a big contrast to: God made a big bang, over billions of years microbes became fish became mammals became apes became people.

We are hardly made in God’s image if we evolved from apes. As a matter of fact it is a shockingly gross insult of God to say so.

This is not only not a natural change but a change irrelevant to the subject of the natural sciences. Science can deal with a gold annulus but cannot say whether it is merely a ring or a wedding ring. Science can describe sexual intercourse but cannot determine whether it is sacred or profane, virtuous or vicious.

What you obviously refuse to consider is that the process of the creation of physical reality (along with all its natural laws and processes) is by the very nature of things every bit as outside the purview of science as is your transubstantiation.

The only reason for rejecting one and accepting the other is sociological: you don't wish to be associated with "those people."

"I agree that saying God is author of the Big Bang contradicts a lot of central Christian doctrines."

Only if "central Christian doctrines" purport that the Big Bang describes the sound they think creation made. However if it is (properly) interpreted as describing the suddenness and magnitude of creation there is nothing contradictory about it at all.

62
posted on 01/09/2011 4:49:18 PM PST
by Natural Law
(Grant that we may be one flock and one shepherd!)

"The problem is that everyone (including yourself) subscribes to an "abracadabra" theory of ex-nihilation.

You don't know what I do or don't subscribe to.

I know that in order to even pretend to be an orthodox Catholic you must believe in some sort of creatio ex nihilo, whatever happened afterwards or however long it took. Otherwise you would be denying the dogma of creation altogether.

The argument is on what followed . . . whether or not the formation of the universe followed natural processes, or if natural processes did not assume their current form until after the formation was complete."

Are you implying that anything created by God is unnatural or that anything natural was not created by God?

I am saying (not implying) that it isn't natural for nature to exist. Nature is the creation of an omnipotent, supernatural G-d. This is inherent in the dogma of creation itself. Only G-d Himself exists "naturally."

I notice that your "unalterable laws of nature" never get in the way of the silly little magic tricks you want to believe in.

To lump me in the same camp as Obama (sniff) oh I simply must make it to the fainting couch in time (crash)!

OK, here’s brass tacks: I don’t hate or disparage anyone because of their religion or locality. But when they come after me by attacking MY religion, then a critical response is in order.

BTW, where does it say that all Catholics are of big city immigrant stock? FWIW, my Protestant critics are younger men who experienced either divorce, spiritual awakening, or both. They’re down on ANYONE who doesn’t believe in predestination. Free will and freedom of choice between good and evil? Fugeddaboutit! They don’t even like Billy Graham. Too liberal.

Thank you for your kind words. Unfortunately, Catholic and other liturgical chr*stians reject the historicity of the Biblical narrative of the first eleven chapters of Genesis out of hand because “that’s what the trailer trash believe.”

Most protestants I know would never be so rude or ugly to me in person, but I am sure that they often wonder albeit privately how it is I could believe such nonsense.

Most people wonder how someone else believes "nonsense" of some kind or another. I'm sure you wonder how Protestants can accept the historicity of Genesis. I wonder why people like you batter at Genesis with the sword of "science" but then sheathe that sword when it comes to the "virgin birth" or "transubstantiation."

I don’t believe I have ever batted at Genesis or the story of creation. I do not claim to know anything other than God created the world and all that is in it, all that is seen and unseen. How He did so is His mystery to reveal as He wishes.

What I do know is that a God great enough to create everything from nothing can, if He chooses make Himself present in the Eucharist. Another mystery that it His to reveal if/when/how He chooses.

>>Generally speaking, people who call themselves Christian, but are anti-Catholic (not to be confused with merely disagreeing with Catholic belief, but in despising or insulting the Church) are simply fools for whom vanity is the driving force in what passes for their faith.<<

You are an amazing soul. Thank you. I agree with you fully.

69
posted on 01/09/2011 5:01:12 PM PST
by netmilsmom
(Happiness is a choice.)

To lump me in the same camp as Obama (sniff) oh I simply must make it to the fainting couch in time (crash)!

Yeah, I kind of got the idea that you would rather be compared to Obama than to Primitive Baptists.

OK, heres brass tacks: I dont hate or disparage anyone because of their religion or locality.

And yet you did. Which logically means that your claim that you do not do so is . . . well . . . you know.

But when they come after me by attacking MY religion, then a critical response is in order.

I have "come after" no one's "religion." For your information, I disagree with just about every aspect of Catholicism and chr*stianity as a whole. I disagree with tritheism, incarnationism, cosmic dualism, salvationism (as chr*stianity understands it), etc., etc., etc. My attacks on the Catholic Church on this forum are limited to one and only one thing: its illogical, irrational, hypocritical, and sociologically-based war on the literal historicity of the first eleven chapters of Genesis.

I can understand why atheists and naturalists and mormons and hindus and so forth don't accept the literal historicity of Genesis. But the Catholic Church 1)has Genesis in its "bible," 2)claims to believe in creatio ex nihilo (unlike mormons who make no such claim), and 3)continually express their belief in a zillion other things that are just as "scientifically and historically impossible" as anything in Genesis 1-11. There is one and only one logical reason for this: an attitude of haughty derision towards "those knuckle-draggers from the backwoods" who believe it. It is nothing but class snobbery. There is simply no other explanation.

BTW, where does it say that all Catholics are of big city immigrant stock?

FWIW, my Protestant critics are younger men who experienced either divorce, spiritual awakening, or both. Theyre down on ANYONE who doesnt believe in predestination. Free will and freedom of choice between good and evil? Fugeddaboutit! They dont even like Billy Graham. Too liberal.

So you can't respect anyone who thinks Billy Graham is a liberal? I guess you like your Protestants liberal. But then, most FReeper chr*stians seem to like their moslems liberal as well.

Anyway, on this website anticatholicism is alive and well.

I'm sorry, but you're being a crybaby. If you want to take a look at a religion under constant attack on FR I can give you two examples: islam and mormonism. Islam I can understand. Mormonism I don't agree with at all, but I don't argue with them because they don't claim to believe in creatio ex nihilo. Every single day threads and threads and threads and threads are posted attacking mormonism. There are people here to seem to do nothing but, and they ignore that the Catholic Church shares some of the things they despise about mormonism (some sort of "gentlemen's agreement," I take it). But you Catholics don't know diddly squat about being "under attack" at Free Republic.

And firing back is kind of fun. Dominus vobiscum, yall. ;^)

I'm glad you find attacks on rural America so hilarious. I'd compare you to the liberals again, but since you would consider that a compliment . . .

I dont believe I have ever batted at Genesis or the story of creation. I do not claim to know anything other than God created the world and all that is in it, all that is seen and unseen. How He did so is His mystery to reveal as He wishes.

In a sense it is a "mystery" to everyone. However, in another sense He did provide us with a historical account and chronology in Genesis. That you do not believe this is, of course, the typical Catholic position. However, it makes you a hypocrite for believing in other miracles while denying these.

What I do know is that a God great enough to create everything from nothing can, if He chooses make Himself present in the Eucharist. Another mystery that it His to reveal if/when/how He chooses.

While I don't believe in your "transubstantiation" I don't attack it. I attack one thing and one thing only: your church's war on the first eleven chapters of Genesis. It is the height of hypocrisy and social snobbery to reject the facticity of Genesis while accepting other "miracles" just as impossible.

Catholics on FR (and elsewhere) regularly wage open warfare on Genesis as if it were an evil, subversive book that is threatening to derail the entire Catholic religion. I guess they know something I don't.

I was Catholic for six years. And one of the things that drew me toward it was the "real presence." I also believed G-d could do anything. But I could not remain in good conscience in a religion that hypocritically taught the "real presence" while attacking the veracity of Genesis.

Do not suppose to tell me what I do or do not believe. I have never made an argument against the creation as told in Genesis. The Catholic Church does not say that I must or must not accept as historical the account of creation in Genesis.

The Church does not reject science either, and what you are trying to link as hypocrisy is actually the Church adhering to her both/and theology. It is not impossible that the creation of the world created a Big Bang, though there is no doubt in the Church that the creator of that band is God.

Genesis says it took six days to create the world. The New Testament tells us that one day is like a thousand years to God and vice versa. Therefore, you are relying on a false understanding of what the Church teaches to paint me personally as a hypocrite. Please do not make it personal.

Funny that as I write these things to you, I am listening to Father Corapi speak about Sacred Scripture. He has just remarked about the Old Testament and in those remarks he has said that some will say that the Old Testament is not true or is no longer important in light of Jesus and the New Testament.

Baloney, he says. The same Jesus that created the universe out of nothing could make fish out of fish. LOL

Do not suppose to tell me what I do or do not believe. I have never made an argument against the creation as told in Genesis. The Catholic Church does not say that I must or must not accept as historical the account of creation in Genesis.

The current Catholic Church actively discourages a "literal" interpretation of the first eleven chapters of Genesis. It regards creationism and creationists as an embarrassment and for this reason doesn't proselytize in rural America. In fact, the official paper of my own diocese (I did tell you I used to be Catholic, correct?) once ran an article saying the Catholic Church would let the Fundamentalist churches have the creationists. So much for being a "universal" church. Meanwhile, totem poles are okay.

The Church does not reject science either, and what you are trying to link as hypocrisy is actually the Church adhering to her both/and theology. It is not impossible that the creation of the world created a Big Bang, though there is no doubt in the Church that the creator of that band is God.

And I said nothing that implied a rejection of science, unless you insist on maintaining that the world could not possibly have been created as narrated in Genesis because "that isn't how the world works."

Genesis says it took six days to create the world.

Indeed it does . . . not just in Genesis 1, but in several other places as well.

The New Testament tells us that one day is like a thousand years to God and vice versa.

I suggest you go back and read that passage (which is a quotation from the Hebrew Bible) again. It says nothing about the length or process of creation, but merely that G-d dwells outside time and what seems like "slackness" in the delay of the "second coming" isn't really slackness at all.

The Kolbe Center recently posted this article by Hugh Owen dealing with this very passage. Why don't you read it?

Therefore, you are relying on a false understanding of what the Church teaches to paint me personally as a hypocrite. Please do not make it personal.

Here you are 100% correct. I do not know you at all, and I took the hypocrisy of the teachings of the Catholic Church and applied them to you personally when I don't even know where in the Catholic spectrum you fit. I was wrong to do this. I attacked you personally, just as I have on occasion been attacked personally. I treated you exactly as I would not want to be treated. This is a great wrong I have committed against you, and I ask your forgiveness and pray G-d will grant me strength to restrain my emotions in the future.

People like you insult the most reviled population group in the country, employing identical language to that used by the Left, and I'm supposed to "chill out?"

No sir. I will never "chill out." I will never stand aside while cowards and bullies (whether Catholic or liberal) punch away at people they don't even know because they believe in the "wrong miracles," secure in the knowledge that there will never be payback.

Why don't you "chill out?" But no, you insist on maintaining your martyrdom and that of your co-religionists on this site.

If you can't take it . . . don't dish it out.

So long as I am here (and I have been here going on twelve years now) no one will ridicule rural Americans without consequence.

Funny that as I write these things to you, I am listening to Father Corapi speak about Sacred Scripture. He has just remarked about the Old Testament and in those remarks he has said that some will say that the Old Testament is not true or is no longer important in light of Jesus and the New Testament.

Baloney, he says. The same Jesus that created the universe out of nothing could make fish out of fish. LOL

That is Catholic belief. No hypocrisy there.

Would that were true. Unfortunately, while Fr. Corapi may believe in creatio ex nihilo as an abstract concept, he doesn't believe in the facticity of the events of the first eleven chapters of Genesis--and that is what this argument is about.

The Church does not attack the veracity of Genesis. Genesis provides an outline or framework for Creation, but it was never intended to be a science book. Genesis is a theological work that affirms that God created the world and explains the "evolution" of human nature through original sin. It explains out existence in theological terms, but never hints at the existence of the science that fills in the blanks. You see, science and math are nothing more than the language in which God's works are further explained, not a substitute or an alternative for His works.

82
posted on 01/09/2011 6:18:26 PM PST
by Natural Law
(Grant that we may be one flock and one shepherd!)

I don’t agree with you obviously, but I think you take too seriously what some Catholics feel towards the “fundies” that believe the earth is only a few thousand years old.

I go by official Church teaching when considering all that is put before me, even by Catholic scholars and theologians.

The Church does not say that one must believe or discount as fantasy the first eleven books of the Bible. It is open to the science of the big bang, though closed as to the author of the universe and of life.

I don’t make a judgment actually. I don’t know. I stand by my original statement that it is a mystery that I can live without fully knowing unless and until God chooses to confirm or correct what is said in Genesis. He created everything from nothing. I accept that in faith and it is enough for me.

Mind reading. And, as it happens, false. AND irrelevant to the particular point of suggesting that special creation (or whatever) is analogous to transubstantiation.

I avoid conversations with people who leap to conclusions and base rudeness on the conclusions to which they leap. Conversations with people who switch from one point to another are fruitless.

There seemed to be a false analogy offered between transubstantiation and matters of scientific "law". My remarks were addressed to that false analogy, which I think you brought up, not to the larger question.

But I think I may be seeing a demonstration of the topic of the original post. I don't know why these conversations have to get so heated.

85
posted on 01/09/2011 7:10:33 PM PST
by Mad Dawg
(Oh Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.)

That is what your argument is about. The original post is about why anti-Catholics like to, for example, read minds falsely, be needlessly confrontative, fail to understand when their own arguments are being addressed, and are often really unpleasant in conversation.

86
posted on 01/09/2011 7:15:28 PM PST
by Mad Dawg
(Oh Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.)

I dont agree with you obviously, but I think you take too seriously what some Catholics feel towards the fundies that believe the earth is only a few thousand years old.

You realize, do you not, that "fundie" is an ethno-cultural slur? Why are "fundies" who believe in the literal truth of Genesis 1-11 any more stupid or funny than Catholics who believe in the virgin birth, the Fatima "sun dance," transubstantiation, or any number of other things? Why are any of these the slightest bit more "scientific" or "rational" or "intellectual" than six day young earth creationism? I don't see any difference at all other than "our miracles are great and 'theirs' are stupid."

The Church does not say that one must believe or discount as fantasy the first eleven books of the Bible. It is open to the science of the big bang, though closed as to the author of the universe and of life.

You are wrong. The Catholic Church is at war with the literal interpretation of Genesis and is currently doing everything in its power to discourage and eventually extirpate it so that not one Genesis "literalist" will be left in the Catholic Church. This also means that for all practical purposes belief in evolution has been made into a dogma which one must believe before one can convert to the Catholic Church.

I dont make a judgment actually. I dont know. I stand by my original statement that it is a mystery that I can live without fully knowing unless and until God chooses to confirm or correct what is said in Genesis. He created everything from nothing. I accept that in faith and it is enough for me.

Having written Genesis in the first place, why would G-d ever need to "correct" it?

I simply do not understand why you cannot in good conscience accept the literal historical truth of Genesis 1-11. Do you have the same trouble with John 6?

You know . . . mormons don't even claim to believe in creation ex nihilo. They admit that they believe the universe is an eternal thing made up of worlds, each with its own "gxd" (who used to be a man) and that each "saved" person will eventually become a "gxd" of his own world. Yet they don't spend any time attacking the literal interpretation of Genesis. The Catholic Church claims to believe in creatio ex nihilo, yet it is at war with Genesis. Does this make any sense to you?

Genesis provides an outline or framework for Creation, but it was never intended to be a science book.

Playing the tape again, I see. You know, I think I have this speech memorized every bit as well as you do.

Genesis is a theological work that affirms that God created the world and explains the "evolution" of human nature through original sin. It explains out existence in theological terms, but never hints at the existence of the science that fills in the blanks. You see, science and math are nothing more than the language in which God's works are further explained, not a substitute or an alternative for His works.

Then I guess the "new testament" doesn't teach the virgin birth, transubstantiation, or the resurrection either. After all, it's a theological work and science has explained to us that these things can't really happen.

I'm disappointed. We got so close to the point of the matter in our last discussion (I had this idea you were about to say that it's as natural for the laws of science to exist as it is for G-d to exist), but no, you opted to make The Speech.

Here's my speech (which you probably don't have memorized because you've never read it--"open-minded" fellow that you are):

Science can only tell us about the world before it. It cannot tell us a thing about the supernatural processes of creation or the world in its formative state before the laws of nature actually began to function.

But then, you believe the laws of nature are eternal, so that means nothing to you.

There seemed to be a false analogy offered between transubstantiation and matters of scientific "law". My remarks were addressed to that false analogy, which I think you brought up, not to the larger question.

The analogy is not false; it is quite apropos. It illustrates the problem exactly:

Catholics reject the literal truth of Genesis because "that is what the white trash believe." There is no other legitimate reason to do this. Otherwise they would reject transubstantiation as well.

That is what your argument is about. The original post is about why anti-Catholics like to, for example, read minds falsely, be needlessly confrontative, fail to understand when their own arguments are being addressed, and are often really unpleasant in conversation.

People tend to dislike people who dislike them.

The Catholic Church despises the simple people of rural America while celebrating pompous intellectuals and third world illiterates.

What possible reason could there be fore excluding young earth creationists from converting to the Catholic Church other than that they don't have souls or their souls aren't worth saving?

I note that no one likes to be attacked ad hominem. But everyone seems to enjoy attacking others that very way.

If the ethnic slurs used to describe rural American Fundamentalist Protestants by some FReepers were to be used of any other group, the poster would be banned as a bigot. It seems that on FR as in the main stream media, it's open season on Bubba.

Now it is my turn to apologize. The use of the word “fundies” was careless, but not meant in any way more than that is the way they are referred to. I harbor no ill will toward them, nor do I think that they are any less intelligent than me.

I believe in Genesis, I believe that God breathed and the world came into existence. The Catholic Church has made no pronouncement, no declaration as binding on Catholics that they reject the literal words of Genesis. That some are hostile to it, I don’t or can’t deny or confirm, since I haven’t any knowledge of them.

It is nothing new that there are those in the Church who wish to fundamentally change her and as the Holy Spirit is her guide and instructor, they will not succeed.

I would be interested in reading what you have, provided is it by respected Catholic authors and not the “fringe” types.

I don’t believe that what Pope Benedict said rises to the level of him having a desire to expunge from the Church those who hold to the literal reading of Genesis.

I firmly agree that the God of the Bible is capable of creating it all in the six day time frame that we are familiar with as humans.

As for correcting, I meant in that God would correct our understanding of it. Of course His word is inerrant.

It is a shame you only gave it six years and didn't pursue your questions or concerns to a greater depth. You would have found the deficiencies you perceived were within you and not the Church. Creation and all that is in it, including the laws of nature, as you call them, were created "ab initio temporis", which is a more complete explanation than "ex nihilo". I would encourage you to explore this further.

99
posted on 01/09/2011 8:34:20 PM PST
by Natural Law
(Grant that we may be one flock and one shepherd!)

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